Sixers come up small in 30-point loss to Nets

By
, The Delaware County Daily Times

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

PHILADELPHIA — It’s early yet, and the challenge of developing young players while simultaneously satisfying veterans’ demands for playing time hasn’t set in just yet. Nonetheless, Brett Brown looked at ease Monday night, leaning against a cinderblock wall outside the 76ers’ locker room.

He’s not a quickly excitable guy, which is why the coach appropriately said he’s “comfortable” with the starting lineups he’s been trotting out in the preseason. As for everybody else on his bench…

“We’re still experimenting,” Brown said.

The Sixers, particularly their reserves, certainly looked like a team playing in discord, as Brooklyn cast off Brown’s bunch, 127-97, with ease.

The Nets had their way with the Sixers — on the glass, at the defensive end, and just about every other spot on the floor that you can think of. Brooklyn outrebounded the Sixers, 54-31. The Nets swatted seven of the Sixers’ shots, and forced redirections on about a dozen others.

The Sixers’ Evan Turner had a suggestion for his teammates.

“If you want it, you’ve just got to go get it pretty much. If you don’t want it, move out the way and let somebody else get it,” Turner said.

Brown had another idea.

“It’s like the old high school drill where the coach would put a lid on the rim and you got a point if the ball hits the floor. It’s something like that,” Brown said. “When you look out there and see Thaddeus (Young) is working and Spencer (Hawes) is working … that’s the landscape. It’s the NBA. We better spend some time and admit some things in relation to defensive rebounding.”

No matter how Brown decides he’s going to shake up his rotation, the flawed unit is going to be exposed. At times, the Nets packed it in and forced the Sixers to hit jumpers. Late, the visitors gave them the paint, almost urging them to throw it in the middle to an undersized big, only to have that player eventually swarmed.

The Sixers did everything in a bid to combat Brooklyn.

They played, at times, with three ball-handling guards: Evan Turner, Tony Wroten and Khalif Wyatt. Then Brown turned Wroten loose with the starters. He tried Royce White (6-8, 260) as the lone big man on the floor, to contend with Brooklyn’s Brook Lopez, Kevin Garnett and Reggie Evans. Then he swapped out White for a similarly small post player in Lavoy Allen (6-9, 255).

It’s not like Allen can lend any sage advice to his teammates, either.

“I mean, is there anything I can show my team? I had one rebound. It’s nothing I can show anybody,” Allen said.

Along the way, Lopez tormented the Sixers’ frontcourt players for 17 points, most of them on uncontested looks. Even Shaun Livingston got into the rebounding action, with the guard pulling down nine boards, to go with 17 points and eight assists.

The Sixers are in a tough spot. They have three bigs (Nerlens Noel, Arnett Moultrie and Kwame Brown) who are sitting with injuries. They have two more (Mac Koshwal and Tim Ohlbrecht) who are just sitting. So Brett Brown has no choice but to go with a smaller, guard-heavy lineup.

They’ll fluster some teams, and get overpowered by most others, as was the case Monday.

A few promising things took place for the Sixers: Michael Carter-Williams (3-for-7) was clicking beyond the 3-point line, even if his assist-to-turnover ratio was 1-to-1. White gave them 14 minutes of nearly foul-free basketball. And Young turned in his usual high-energy night.

Those weren’t nearly enough to turn away Brooklyn, which will contend for a high playoff seed in the Eastern Conference standings.

“This is reality. …You see the level of talent and you look at the level of experience and physical stature of their players, I get stuff out of this,” Brown said. “It’s clear our physical stature isn’t going to change. We have to spend time in box-out drills. Trying to run is not going to pay the dividends we want it to pay.”